Perched On A Terrible Divide

To the Editor:

Letters to The Bee supporting the new budget and the school expansion have persuaded me to vote against them.

The gentleman who promises that my property values will go up when the world discovers that we approve new expenditures reminds me that there are two sorts of people. Those who regard their houses as an ATM, and those who regard them as homes they intend to spend their lives in.

The gentleman who asks me to unite makes a slightly better case until I realize that he is asking me to unite behind saying Yes to his expenditures regardless of the damage I and others will suffer from new taxes to pay for them. His heartfelt call to support ideas projected by hardworking and sincere elected and volunteer officials is even harder to resist until I remember that hardworking, sincere officials got us into this mess in the first place by allowing developers to run riot for 20 years. Hard work and sincerity do not always equal wisdom. Where does he think all these children who need to be educated are living, but in houses that should not have been built in the first place if officials who approved developers schemes had listened to the warnings that they would be filled with children that needed to be educated?

The letters that call for spending more and more on educating our youth forget that our elders fear being driven out of their homes. The youth, by nature, are young, and the young are resilient. If a few years of students have to sacrifice while we get through the current population bulge or suffer crowded athletic spaces to save their elders’ homes, most will survive the experience and rise even stronger from it.

I do agree with all that we are perched on a terrible divide. Do we become a town like some of the Westchester towns, whose entire purpose is to send children to free school and rush off as soon as they have been accepted in the Ivy League? Or do we remain a town where raising children is one of several worthy activities and the children grow up enjoying the benefits of living with all ages and all types who are happy to share their lives if only they are allowed to remain here?

Justin Scott

Parmalee Hill Road, Newtown                                      April 17, 2008